Latest sinking shocks fellow N.J. fishermen (01/20/99)

Apr. 7, 2010

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Mark Skon was making his morning coffee on the Ian Nigel, a scallop boat, when a friend came to tell him the Adriatic had gone down the night before.

"I thought he was kidding and told him to stop joking around because we couldn't have lost another boat, not again," said Skon, who, like many in this fishing community knew men lost to the sea over the last two weeks. "But he wasn't joking and I was just in total shock."

Fishermen and dock workers in Point Pleasant Beach said the feelings of shock and sadness over the disappearance of the Adriatic, a 74-foot clamming boat, Monday afternoon brought a grim and unwelcome feeling of deja vu .

"It's the same as when the Beth Dee Bob went down, and the Cape Fear ... and the Ellie B, though those guys turned out OK," said Skon, referring to the three other shipwrecks off the East Coast since Jan. 6. "This is dangerous work, but a lot of guys didn't think it would happen again."

"A buddy of mine on the Victoria Elizabeth was going out and I told him to have a safe trip," Skon said. "He said he wasn't worried, because bad things happen in threes."

"They've got to change that to fours, I guess," Skon said.

The three wrecks claimed the Beth Dee Bob, lost along with its four-man crew in heavy seas 14 miles off Manasquan Inlet Jan. 6; the Cape Fear, which went down off New Bedford, Mass., Jan. 8, killing two crew members; and the Ellie B., which hit the Manasquan Inlet's north jetty while returning to port Sunday. Its three-man crew was rescued minutes later.

Skon, who went to school with Adriatic first mate Timothy Michael Hagar, whom friends call "Mike," said the 31-year-old was a friendly man who took fishing seriously. He said Hagar attended Point Pleasant Boro High School and had children. George Evans, the owner and captain of the Adriatic, was from Virginia Beach and had a college-age daughter.

"It's a tough thing, I've known Mike for a long time," Skon said. "I think a lot of people here are having a rough time with it, just like we did with the other guys we lost. These are lost friends."

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A worker at Point Pleasant Packing, the Point Pleasant Beach dock from which the Adriatic left, said he heard the announcements go out over the Coast Guard radio station Monday night asking for people to keep an eye out for the Adriatic. The boat was hours overdue to the Atlantic City port where it was supposed to arrive at 7 p.m.

"Then at 11:30 or 11:45 p.m. I heard the chopper go out," said the worker, who did not want to be identified. "At that point you pray and you're hopeful, but you know it's not good."

In Barnegat Light, another fishing community, there are no clamming boats because the makeup of the inlet there makes bringing in the haul too difficult. But as a fishing community, many residents brace themselves during reports of missing boats.

"I found out they were looking for a boat and immediately started calling people," said Cindy Hudson, who works at Kubel's restaurant, a popular fishermen's hangout in Barnegat Light. "It's so sad for them but I feel a little guilty, because I can't help feeling a little relieved it wasn't one of ours."

"Anytime a fisherman loses his life, people around here care," said Skip Zerbe, Barnegat Light, who worked as a fisherman until retiring.

Others, while expressing sympathy for the families and friends of lost fishermen, said it is all a part of the business.

"It's like hearing about an accident on a road; you don't stop driving because of that," said Chris Einselen, who owns and runs the long-liner Marion Frances out of Viking Village in Barnegat Light. "If it's someone we don't know, it doesn't hit us that hard. Don't get me wrong, though. We feel terrible for them, but it can't shake us that hard."

At Barney's Dock on Gardner's Basin in Atlantic City, captain Frank Marriner and his crew unloaded the catch of clams from the 110-foot boat Timberline I, and talked about the rash of fatal sinkings.

Edward McLaughlin, the captain lost Jan. 6 on the Beth Dee Bob, worked in his early years on the Timberline, recalled Charles Marriner, Frank's uncle and a technician who is intimately familiar with many of the local fleet's clam vessels.

"That was a good boat. That was really upsetting for it to go down like that," he said of the Beth Dee Bob. "It could be that they got a tremendous charge of water in the engine room somehow."

The bodies of McLaughlin and another clammer remain missing two weeks after the sinking.

"I'd like to see Ed come home," Marriner said quietly. "I've known him since he was a kid. I'd really like to see him brought home."

Like his uncle, Frank Marriner blames the weather. All three of the fatal sinkings occurred in heavy weather.

"It's just these (weather) fronts coming in too fast," arriving a couple hours before fishermen expect high winds, he said.